The present invention relates to an amusement device constructed of a plurality of individual modular units which can interfit to form a three-dimensional object.
Various amusement devices using this general concept have been devised over the years for recreational, educational and aptitude testing purposes. Very often, the amusement devices takes the form of a puzzle in which various pieces can be interfit to produce a specific object. Very often these puzzles and their associated pieces are of elementary design and are easily completed, so that once solved, the puzzle is no longer used.
The present invention seeks to provide an amusement device which can be used as a puzzle to form a solid equilateral tetrahedron which employs a plurality of interfitting solid modular units, each having a unique shape. Because each of the modular units has a unique shape, the difficulty of correctly fitting them together is increased significantly thus requiring considerable thought and trial and error to construct the tetrahedron. In addition, the shapes of each of the modular units is highly complex, being formed from the integral connection of one or more solid octrahedrons with one or more solid tetrahedrons, which further increases the degree of difficulty in assembling the units together to form the completed tetrahedron.
Thus, one object of the invention is to provide an amusement device in which a plurality of modular units, each having a unique and unusual shape, can be interfit to form a solid equilateral tetrahedron.
An additional object of the invention is to provide an amusement device in which a plurality of modular units, each having a unique and unusual shape, can also be interfit to form various three-dimensional shapes, thus allowing the amusement device to function as a free form sculpture.
An additional object of the invention is to provide an amusement device in which a plurality of modular units can be interfit to form a solid equilateral tetrahedron having a larger size, while a lesser number of the plurality of modular units can also be interfit to form a solid equilateral tetrahedron of smaller size.
Yet another object of the invention is to provide an amusement device in which each of the modular units has a unique and unusual geometric shape, which is defined by the integral connection of one or more solid octrahedrons and one or more solid tetrahedrons, at least one face of each tetrahedron being joined to an equal sized and shaped face of an octrahedron.